The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War in this "riveting reexamination of a nation in tumult" (Los Angeles Times).
"A feast of historical insight and narrative verve . . . This is Erik Larson at his best, enlivening even a thrice-told tale into an irresistible thriller."--The Wall Street Journal On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter. Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln's election and the Confederacy's shelling of Sumter--a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were "so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them." At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter's commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between them. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous secretary of state, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable--one that will eventually kill 750,000 Americans. Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink--a dark reminder that we often don't see a cataclysm coming until it's too late.
"A feast of historical insight and narrative verve . . . This is Erik Larson at his best, enlivening even a thrice-told tale into an irresistible thriller."--The Wall Street Journal On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter. Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln's election and the Confederacy's shelling of Sumter--a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were "so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them." At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter's commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between them. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous secretary of state, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable--one that will eventually kill 750,000 Americans. Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink--a dark reminder that we often don't see a cataclysm coming until it's too late.
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Community Reviews
Typical of Erik Larson - lots of details. But very interesting as many of the details were provided from the diaries of subjects in the book. Different approach to telling history. I enjoyed it.
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“Here lies the Union. Born 4th July 1776. Died 7th Nov. 1860…Twelve forty-five A.M., Friday, April 12, 1861, [was] destined to be the single-most consequential day in American history…In thirty-four hours of some of the fiercest bombardment the world had ever seen, no one was killed or even seriously injured, yet this bloodless attack would trigger a war that killed more Americans than any other conflict in the country’s history.”
The first shot at Fort Sumter triggered the Civil War. “It was the moment when at last the Union took the South seriously.” Of all the trials Lincoln had since he came to Washington, none begin to compare with those he had between the inauguration and the fall of Fort Sumter.
Erik Larson’s newest title was inspired by New York-born, Virginia-raised West Point professor Dennis Hart Mahan in his 1860 letter to a friend, “But when commerce, manufacturers, the mechanic arts disturbed this condition of things, and amassed wealth that could pretend to more lavish luxury than planting, then came in, I fear, this demon of unrest which has been the utmost sole disturber of the land for years past.”
Even for Confederate General Robert E. Lee, “this was a wrenching moment. He considered slavery ‘a moral and political evil’ and looked upon secession ‘as anarchy.’” Slavery was like “a cancer, whose inner damage was masking the victim’s outward appearance of health.” Fulfillment of the Declaration of Independence meant nothing more or less than emancipation. “The idea that the preservation of the Union is more important than the Liberty of nearly 4,000,000 human beings cannot be…approved by God or supported by good men.”
“Here we have in charge the solution of the greatest problem of the ages. We are here two races–white and black–now both equally American, holding each other in the closest embrace and utterly unable to extricate ourselves from it. A problem so difficult, so complicated, so momentous never was placed in charge of any portion of Mankind. And on its solution rests our all.” Historical, suspenseful, and unputdownable, Erik Larson’s The Demon of Unrest is a masterpiece.
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